Stranded in the Blistering Cold

[Weird Girl]

Would like to know how you feel about the composition and mood of this photo. Was taken in the middle of the afternoon- the winter night look was done in pp. Any other comments are welcomed!

Nikon D300s
17-70mm Sigma lens
1/320
f11
70mm
ISO 200
no flash
Edited in Lightroom 3

[Marcus Reinkensmeyer]

The composition and color renditions are strong, pulling the viewer into the scene. The photo could be improved by some of the detail in the foreground snow .... not an easy task with such mid-day high contrast lighting. If the image was captured in RAW format, try using he Recovery slider in the Power Point RAW converter. Another option is to use reduce the amount of highlight, using the slider control in the Shadow/Highlight box.

Thanks for sharing ... m

[Weird Girl]

Thanks! I appreciate the comment. I will play with that now and re-post it

[Weird Girl]

Here is an updated version... is this better?

[shruggy63]

I prefer the more natural first shot (even with the graduated sky). I think what you need is a highly trained pack of stunt penguins. They're almost as highly prized as monkey butlers. Either way they'd give you something in the foreground?

[Weird Girl]

Are you saying I need more of a subject? LOL I'm still trying to figure out what that means when you are photographing a landscape...

Honestly, I took this shot to practice with the gradient tool in Lightroom and I think I need more practice but I liked the cold winter night effect.

Does anyone have a recommendation on how I could reduce the grain? I only shot ISO 200 and I know I sharpened it but I also turned up the luminance a bit.

[vainqueur]

Originally Posted by Weird Girl

Would like to know how you feel about the composition and mood of this photo. Was taken in the middle of the afternoon- the winter night look was done in pp. Any other comments are welcomed!

Nikon D300s
17-70mm Sigma lens
1/320
f11
70mm
ISO 200
no flash
Edited in Lightroom 3

I assume you are using the light meter to get the exposure? Cannot trust that when you are taking shots of snow. Learnt a trick from Bryan Peterson, stretch your hand out with your palm right in front, aim your camera at your palm and lock your exposure, that will determine the correct exposure. Either that or you might want to use a GND.

[Weird Girl]

ok, cool i will try that! Thank you! Are you saying that because there is still not enough detail in the snow?

[shruggy63]

Sorry Weird, I think I'm spending too much time reading crits... It's a nice shot, the strong diagonal line is quite dynamic & it looks very cold. Trained stunt penguins though! Eh eh?
Keep at it mate!

[Krusty79]

I would encourage you to learn how to use the histogram function in your camera and PP software. You have clipping on the right end, which means there are blown-out white areas because of the snow. There is too much range to capture it all in one shot. Shooting in the middle of the day only makes it worse. Shoot in the golden hours.

I know I probably sound like a broken record saying this, but you should use a tripod, shoot RAW and bracket your shots. That way, you can make one jpg for the bright areas and one for the rest of the scene and blend the two images using a layer mask.